MUMBAI: Mehli Mistry, a Director of M. Pallonji Group and a businessman seen to be a close associate of chairman Ratan Tata, has been inducted on the Boards of two of the largest Tata Trusts, which together own 66 per cent of Tata Sons Ltd, according to a report published in a prominent business daily.
Tata Trusts’ Chief Executive N. Srinath has resigned, having superannuated 30 months after he assumed the role, said the report further.
The induction of Mehli Mistry, the estranged first cousin of the late Cyrus Mistry, on the Board of Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Allied Trusts and the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Allied Trusts, offers a view into how Ratan Tata, 84, is entrusting key allies with responsibilities to manage the affairs at the country’s largest philanthropic institutions.
Apart from Noel Tata, Ratan Tata’s half-brother, Pune-based philanthropist Jehangir HC Jehangir, former Citibank executive Pramit Jhaveri, Mistry and industrialist Venu Srinivasan are among the trustees who are in their sixties. Ratan Tata and group veterans such as RK Krishna kumar and retired bureaucrat Vijay Singh are in their late seventies and eighties.
Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, passed a special resolution in August, with the support of the trusts, amending the articles of association by stipulating that the Chairperson of Tata Sons and Tata Trusts will not be the same person.
